


a hero's ending

by jitters



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22136209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jitters/pseuds/jitters
Summary: Sora's hardest life lesson, is learning that sometimes a princess doesn't need saving.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 160





	a hero's ending

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the mighty fall (in love)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17196458) by [jitters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jitters/pseuds/jitters). 



> this is a companion piece to the mighty fall (in love)
> 
> so yes i am cutting it close to re:mind, when this will become completely irrelevant, but hey, i did the same thing with the first part so why not!

This race seems inconsequential; like any other. They’ve run up and down the beach several times today, and though they aren’t keeping score, Sora knows he’s losing.

“Hey, wait up!” he calls after Riku, just steps ahead of him this time. He’s starting to wear himself down and Sora just knows that with a little push…

“Too slow, Sora!” Riku smiles back at him — he can’t see it, but Sora can hear the smile in his voice. “See ya at the finish line!”

He’s so close he can taste the victory, and how out of breath he is only enhances the faint taste of sand on his tongue with each pant. He pushes his legs to their limit, but Riku still beats him at the last second. It takes Sora a moment to catch his breath, but his legs aren’t ready to give up yet. “One more time, you just got lucky!” he begs, knowing Riku will likely cave as he always does.

But Riku’s attention is elsewhere, over Sora’s shoulder at the bridge above them. Following Riku’s curious gaze, Sora sees her — a blue-haired woman wearing armor and weird frills of her clothing. It’s the second strange visitor they’ve had recently, but Sora isn’t scared this time. Riku handled the last one on his own, and with him at his side, Sora doesn’t fear much of anything.

He can’t help his surprise when she jumps down between them, jumping back and hollering in shock, unconsciously closer to Riku, but when Riku looks at him fondly and he feels the peace of her eyes on them, he feels embarrassed, shyly rubbing the back of his neck.

She’s laughing at them for something, and Sora feels how easily his and Riku’s confused glances meet. It’s starting to seem like a lot of weird people live outside their island. 

“Hey, you two mind telling me your names?” she asks, and her voice is calm and warm, like she’s somehow already a friend. It makes him smile.

“I’m Sora!” he offers with excitement now..

“And you?”

“Riku.” 

She stares at Riku for longer, and her expression wrinkles thoughtfully. Feeling a familiar pull, Sora’s eyes seek out Riku’s, and they share another confused glance, knowing they’re wondering the same things without having to say them out loud.

“Sora, do you like Riku?” she asks directly, and even the suggestion of it perks him up, causing him to hop just slightly, his fist gripping in determination.

“Of course I like him, he’s my best friend!”

It’s the easiest question he’s ever answered; and he gets confused a lot. Riku seems pleased by his answer, as does this mystery woman, but he can hardly keep up when so quickly she assigns him the duty of watching over Riku and keeping him safe if he gets lost or wanders down a dark path. What dark path? Lost where? They’ve been nearly everywhere on their islands, and they aren’t getting any bigger. Even if it were a more difficult job though, Sora can’t imagine any other outcome. 

After the blue-haired stranger has left them, Sora walks closer at Riku’s side and finds himself leaning against him as they share a boat ride back to the mainland. 

“Hey Riku,” he calls brightly, stumbling over his rowing. “Why do you think that lady asked me to keep you safe? Where are you going?”

Riku’s eyes widen, and to Sora’s surprise, he looks out to sea, where the sun is setting on them as it does every day. “I don’t know yet,” Riku almost whispers, and Sora can’t help but focus in on his every word. “Anywhere, or nowhere. There’s gotta be a hundred different worlds out there, maybe more. I want to get strong and see all of them!”

Sora’s eyes shine in awe; he’s always known Riku was cool, but the determination reminds him of the strongest pirates and heroes in his storybooks, and he bursts onto his feet, nearly tipping the boat in the process. “Then I’ll go with you! That must be what she meant! I’ll stay next to you the whole time!”

Riku blinks, but his smile follows with ease, and he nods quietly, looking even happier than usual. Sora wants to make sure they smile this much on all of their adventures from now on, and at four years old, he thinks love is the easiest thing in the world to understand.

He isn’t the smartest kid on the island; no, he’s fairly sure that’s Riku, if he doesn’t count the grown-ups. But even Sora knows how easy it is to follow his instincts and his feelings, and his heart is perfectly capable of letting him know when it loves someone. 

The word ‘love’ is one he’d first heard from his mother, said to his father and to himself, but when he’d asked for the meaning, all she had said was that it is something you feel, not think. Sora’s good at that. 

In the story books his father reads to him, love is always portrayed as a force that brings people together, and makes them want to hug each other. It makes people smile, it makes people miss each other, it makes them shed tears of joy and tears of pain. It’s almost like a superpower.

Sora loves each of his parents, and all of his friends, and on a dark night when the sky is raining balls of light and his best friend holds his hand tight and makes him a promise, Sora knows by the warmth in his chest that he and Riku love each other too.

Sora knows Riku loves him by the way he always lets him use the tire swing first, by the times he secretly lets Sora win their races if Sora’s lost a few times in a row. He knows Riku loves him by the excitement in his eyes whenever they meet up, no matter how short of a time it’s been, and by the way Riku always sneaks an extra snack from home for Sora to have in case he got stuck with something healthy. 

A lot of things in life are already so complicated, but this isn’t one of them — Sora knows he loves Riku too, by the way nothing else makes him happier than each and every one of those moments.   
  
  


  
  


When Sora is eight, he wonders if he’s been reading the wrong storybooks. 

The ones Kairi and Selphie read are all about love, but without as many adventures, and based on what he’s always understood, it doesn’t seem to be the same kind of love at all.

“Isn’t it romantic?” Selphie coos, turning the page as Kairi sits next to her, a bound collection of their favorite fairy tales open across Kairi’s knees. “The prince never gave up searching the whole kingdom for the princess. He must really be in love!”

Kairi isn’t quite as boisterous about it, but her eyes are shining, and Sora can’t help but be curious, kneeling down in the sand in front of them, the ocean at his back. “In love?” he asks, hands on his knees and head cocking cluelessly to the side. “What’s the difference between loving and being  _ in _ the love?”

Both of them giggle in an amusement Sora doesn’t quite understand, and Kairi teasingly pokes his nose. His cheeks warm from an undefined shyness, and he smiles. “Just ‘in love,’” she corrects him. “It’s different from the regular thing. Being in love is the romantic version.”

“The romantic version…” he repeats, processing, and shuffles around between the two of them so he can get a better look at the pages they’re mooning over and figure out what other kinds of love he’s been completely unaware of all this time. In the drawings, there’s a prince rescuing a princess from a fire-breathing dragon, and the princess is so relieved that she runs into his arms. “So this is being in love? She was in danger and he rescued her?”

“Kinda,” inserts Selphie, leaning her slender arm over Sora and onto the book, pulling it towards herself and onto her lap. “It’s like this because he’s a prince. When a prince is in love with a princess, he’ll do anything to protect her.” She hugs the book to her body and grins.

But Sora only wrinkles his eyebrows and prods, “What about regular people though? The ones who aren’t princes?”

“It’s not that different,” Kairi chimes in on his other side. “Your parents are in love, Sora. It’s when your love for one specific person is stronger than anything else in the world. That’s why all the fairy tales have it! It brings the prince to his princess every time.”

“Okay…” he attempts, wrinkling his entire face this time, and in this analysis he looks over to where Riku is sat on the edge of the dock, feet kicking but still quite far from the water. He looks lonely, but peaceful at the same time, and Sora smiles, wondering if he should go grab him to find out what he’d have to say about all this. If anyone knows, it would be Riku — he has a whole year of experience on all of them, and he’s the coolest and smartest and strongest guy on their island. 

Oh, right. Something occurs to him, and Sora lazily falls back in the sand, resting on his bottom and resting his hands in his lap. 

“If it’s about the person you like most in the whole world, then I love all my friends, but I’m in love with Riku?”

Both of them still, and Kairi’s eyes widen, but Selphie on the other hand, bursts into a fit of giggles, “No, of course not, Sora! Weren’t you paying attention? It’s always a prince and a princess. Or, in the boring world here, a husband and wife. A mom and dad.”

“Boyfriend and girlfriend before that,” Kairi adds, and if Sora isn’t mistaken, her cheeks are flushed, her fingers tightly pressed to her knees where her palms have found themselves firmly plastered. She looks right at him as she tucks her hair behind her ear, and the directness of the attention makes him shy, his cheeks following suit.

“I-I get it,” Sora stutters, hand nervously scratching the back of his neck as he flashes a toothy grin at the both of them. “I prefer pirates to princes though,” he admits, understanding the gist of things but finding the difference in feelings difficult to grasp. “Maybe I’m just not old enough yet.”

He shrugs it off easily, both confused and bored by the idea of romance as they’d described it, so he hops onto his feet and races over to where Riku’s sitting, ignoring the whispered giggling he can hear from them as he leaves.

“What was all the giggling for?” Riku asks as Sora sits down, and Sora feels at ease as soon as he joins his relaxed position, swinging his legs above the water and enjoying the splatter the wind kicks up.

“Nothing cool,” Sora grins, his hands resting on the dock behind him. “Romance. Boyfriend-girlfriend stuff.”

“Oh…” Riku frowns, and almost as if he could feel it, Sora sits up and leans forward instead, hands gripping the edge of the dock between his legs. 

“What’s wrong?” Sora asks, craning his neck around until he sees Riku’s ears tinted red. “Oh! It’s kinda embarrassing, huh? Good thing it’s so far away for us.”

“It is?” Riku looks up at him, eyes as wide as Kairi’s had been a moment ago. He doesn’t understand why people keep looking at him like that, but for the moment he doesn’t care, and Sora just shrugs, jumping off the side of the dock and into the sand, where he digs around until he finds Riku’s old wooden sword, and the crown Sora had constructed out of sticks.

“Let’s play that knight and prince game again instead,” He grunts as he hops up and brings them both back up onto the dock and holds each in one hand, looking between them. “Except…” 

“Except…?” Riku repeats, standing up to meet Sora at eye level (as close as he can get to it, anyway) and reaching for his usual sword.

Sora instead steps onto his tip-toes and places the crown on top of Riku’s head and claims the sword for himself, holding his fist proudly on his hip. “How about you let me protect you this time? It’s no fair if it’s always the other way around.”

Riku’s ears turn bright red, and Sora knows for sure he isn’t imagining it now. He does wonder deep down why both Kairi and Riku respond to him this way, but it’s not important for now, and instead Sora is brimming with confidence.

“Well?” He prods.

Riku finally smiles, and nods with closed eyes. “Okay! I won’t go easy on you from this position either though!”

“You better not!” Sora beams, grabbing Riku’s hand and heading towards the rocky side of the island. “Whenever you need me, I’ll be there to help you no matter what!”

Riku laughs along with him as Sora confidently charges into an imaginary battle, and a part of him wishes it could stay like this forever, while a voice in the back of his head wonders whether or not this “romantic” love is so important if Riku can’t be a part of it.

  
  
  
By eleven, Sora has expanded his story book collection, and Selphie and Kairi’s words have only sunk in further, as he’s taken note of all the tales of princes and princesses, of men on horseback rescuing their damsels in distress. 

Kairi’s favorite book recently, is one of the thickest in the mayor’s library — a collection of fairy tales collected from all over, and Sora has been pouring over it ever since she mentioned it. The endings have become predictable, with the prince succeeding every time, and love conquering over evil in the end. It’s a message that movies have reinforced just as consistently, and Sora has begun to hone in on those conclusions, wondering what comes after or what happens to the prince and princess’ other friends when they run off into the sunset together.

At this moment in particular, he sits on the dock with his legs criss-crossed, the thick book resting on his lap as he pursues the same stories over and over again. The breeze is just strong enough to blow the pages as he attempts to read them, and he lets out a groan as none of the stones he places on the corners seem to stay put.

“Here,” comes a gentle voice, and Kairi takes a seat next to him, holding down the pages of the book on one side while Sora holds the other. “You’re reading my book?”

Sora chuckles shyly, blushing and feeling warmer from the small distance between them. “I wanted to see why you liked them so much,” he half-fibs. “This true love stuff seems pretty powerful, huh. I don’t really get it.”

“We will someday,” Kairi offers as support, turning the pages to one picture in particular, where she points to an illustration of a beautiful crowned princess on a throne. “Look! Isn’t she pretty…”

Kairi’s look of excitement turns to one of longing, and Sora watches her with curious eyes, taking a few glances between her and the pages between them. “You’re...pretty too, Kairi,” he smiles.

“Really!?” After a short pause, she’s beaming, smiling as bright as the sun in the sky above them, and Sora’s smile doesn’t feel so intentional, feeling her joy all through him. “Thanks Sora! You know...I think you’d make a handsome prince.”

“Huh, me?” He blinks, his face flushed from the compliment, and butterflies dance in his stomach. He looks at the picture of the prince on the opposite page, and how he’s showing off his strength, his prowess with a sword, and how cool he looks. Sora frowns, “Are you sure Riku wouldn’t make a better prince?”

“Riku?” Kairi considers for a moment, but is quick to shake her head with a laugh, leaning her hands on her knees and shifting closer. “Riku is cool. But Sora is more of a prince type to me.”

As cool as Riku is, that has to be the best compliment Sora has ever received, and it leaves him beaming with pride, wondering if Kairi is meant to be his princess.   
  
  
  
  
Riku is fourteen, and even though Sora is only one year behind him, it’s starting to feel like an eternity that exists between them.

In Kairi’s fairy tales, there’s almost always a prince and a princess, but sometimes there is a knight instead, and that knight is always popular with all the maidens in the kingdom, loved and admired for his strength.

Riku won the watermelon-smashing competition this year, easily destroying each one in just one hit thanks to the strength he’s been gaining lately, and when he’s presented with a medal, even Kairi is in the group that crowds around him. Normally, Sora would be one of them too, proud of his best friend for his strength and ready to brag that he himself is able to be friends with someone like Riku.

But this time, he wonders for a moment, if he’s made a mistake about his own story — all this time, he’s assumed he must be the prince to Kairi’s princess, but if Riku is a part of their story after all, maybe Kairi is one of the many girls Riku will have around him, just like a knight would. 

That thought pits Sora’s pride and admiration for Riku against his own insecurities; Kairi has always been the one to make him feel special, like he wasn’t second to Riku, but if Riku gets that too, where does it leave him? If Kairi likes Riku, what will he have that’s only his?

It holds Sora back from congratulating Riku as he’s presented with a medal, and though he feels guilty, there’s a worry in his heart when Kairi smiles up at Riku like she often does at him that’s stronger than anything else.

“Sora!” Kairi calls with a wave, and soon she’s jogging towards him with Riku right behind, both of them standing before Sora with beaming excitement on their faces. “Isn’t Riku cool? I knew he’d win.”

“You did?” Sora asks, shoulders slumping even though he’d expected the same. 

“Hey, maybe you’ll give me more of a challenge next year,” Riku laughs, and as well as Sora knows he’s just teasing, it stings, and he has to force a smile. 

When they all agree to go get ice cream to celebrate, Sora joins them, but he hovers just behind the two of them as they chat about Riku’s victory.

Sora isn’t sure what love is anymore, but he’s understanding jealousy better than ever.    
  
  
  
  
Fourteen, as it turns out, is just a weird year.

Sora never believed in the paopu legend. At least, he wasn’t so easily convinced.

But lately it seems to be all anyone’s talking about, worst of all Riku, who brings it up any chance he can, and Sora doesn’t know how he’s supposed to react anymore. It seemed like amusement at first, but now Riku is using it to tease him, as a bargaining chip, a reward to pair with the threat Sora already stresses over, that Riku may in fact be more capable of protecting Kairi than he is.

It’s a big commitment, isn’t it? Connecting yourself to someone forever? Sora wasn’t so sure he even wanted to share the paopu fruit with Kairi in the first place, but once Riku laid it all on the table, and forced Sora into a battle for Kairi as a prize via the fruit, it was all Sora could hope for not to lose. 

A loss like that, would be a loss of Riku and Kairi, as well as what little status he holds above Riku in this regard, and Sora isn’t sure he likes the idea of Riku having Kairi all to himself, getting all the glory and all of her attention, leaving Sora with nothing but his own normalcy.    
  
That fear, that frustration, pushes him to be the fastest and most clever he’s ever been, just barely beating Riku to the tree that acts as a goalpost and reveling in the shock on Riku’s face when he catches sight of it on the pivot, turning back and driven by his adrenaline to keep it up and reach the starting point first.

Normally, this would’ve been just another point in his favor; Riku wins more often than not, but their rivalry has been nothing but fun until recently, and doesn’t know precisely what changed, what drove them to this, but what he does know is that the urge to beat Riku has been getting stronger. So this victory should taste sweet, but all Sora tastes is bitterness, when Riku brushes it off.

“You should’ve seen your face,” Riku laughs, like it meant nothing to him, like his win didn’t even matter. “I was just kidding about the paopu thing.”

Sora wants to believe it. But Riku’s voice is just as bitter as his win, and it’s only made more clear when Riku is the first to head home.

Sora stays behind just a little too long, even past Kairi doing a last sweep for any useful supplies left on the beach, and Sora takes a moment alone to enter the secret place, where he runs fingers along the drawings of each other they’d done as kids. 

He can’t help but think that he has to beat Riku to making a promise like this, and his heart guides his hand as he draws an arm from his own head extending a paopu fruit to Kairi’s. 

All he remembers is a headache and a mysterious voice as he leaves the cave, just in time to scoop up the paopu fruit he’d tossed aside earlier before the tide sweeps it away. It’s inedible now, but he wasn’t interested in eating it anyway, and all he can do is stare at it, absently picking the leaves from it in confused frustration. Funny, it didn’t seem like such a big deal before Riku made it one, and now sharing it seems more important than ever.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Chuckles Kairi from behind him, clasping a hand on his shoulder and causing him to jump.

“Gimme a break, Kairi,” he laughs, cheeks warm and stomach turning like when he’s been caught doing something he’s not supposed to.

“Paopu?” She asks with her usual curiosity, not nervous like he is, and he can’t help but think she’s more amazing than he deserves. 

“Uh…” he instinctively drops it, tossing it out towards the sea so the water will take it away. “No?”

She giggles, and Sora’s heart smiles. “Come on, you can tell me. Were you thinking of sharing it with someone?”

That ‘caught’ feeling gets worse, and Sora rubs the back of his neck, laughing nervously. “I don’t know,” he lies. “Do you think it’d even work?”

“It’s worth a try,” she muses, looking out towards the sea, where the sun is beginning to set. “We could end up anywhere. I don’t want us to get separated.”

She’s always been smarter than him, but Sora wants to kick himself for not thinking of that first; it would be the perfect excuse.

“Come on, let’s go watch the sunset from the dock!” she says, chipper, and Sora follows along with a skip in his step, feeling that just by having a conscious desire to protect her, he’s already done so.

  
  
  
  
  
In any other circumstances, standing together on the deck of a pirate ship would feel like a dream come true for Sora. But seeing Riku standing there, with heartless at his beck and call and an entire crew at his command with one of his best friends held as his lifeless hostage — everything feels wrong.

When Sora had imagined this adventure in his head, he and Riku had been on the same side, with Kairi safe and happy; sure, he wants to be captain, he’d never deny it, but he’d have easily accepted Riku as one if he was still the Riku he’d always looked up to.

This doesn’t feel like that Riku anymore, and it’s getting under Sora’s skin.

Sora may have the keyblade, may have even turned it against Riku once already, but he still cares about Kairi, and it wasn’t fair for Riku to have suggested otherwise. Even if he had been distracted, even if he had been won over by the way the keyblade makes him feel as special as she does, the way he bets Riku feels all the time.

So why…

A pirate in a frilly coat cuts Sora off with a close call with a flash of his hook for a hand, and Sora’s heart aches at the distance between them.

“Riku,” he pushes, and the distance feels further. “Why are you siding with the heartless?”

“The heartless obey me now Sora,” Riku says, and Sora has never felt colder in his presence. “Now I have nothing to fear.”

The Riku he knows doesn’t fear anything.

“You’re stupid,” he throws, as an accusation more than an insult. “Sooner or later they’ll swallow your heart.”

“Not a chance,” Riku’s voice says, from Riku’s face, but Sora doesn’t feel his warmth anymore. “My heart’s too strong.”

Maybe Riku’s heart is. Maybe it isn’t. Riku’s smarter than this, kinder than this. If Kairi’s safe and they’re all here, why would he still… Sora’s heart feels heavy, like he loses more of his strength the more he loses Riku from his grasp, and when he calls his best friend’s name again, he’s pleading, voice soft and appealing to the side of him that always used to cheer him up.

But that side of Riku isn’t here, and instead of compassion Sora finds himself face-to-face with a dark, shadowy outline of his own body. It has no eyes, and the details are few and far between, but it’s undeniably him, and Sora stares in shock, wondering what kind of darkness can take the form of a person. Maybe that darkness took Riku’s form too. Maybe it really isn’t Riku after all, and Sora can fix it, but he doesn’t have a chance to find out before Riku tosses him away.

He meets a boy who refuses to grow up, and a girl who still believes in magic, and he wonders if this is what a prince and princess look like in the real world.   
  
  
  
  
  
When it is Sora himself who is surrounded by nothingness, it’s Riku’s voice that calls to him through the darkness, and teaches him to fly again, and nothing is scary anymore. Somehow, not even when Sora joins him to shut the door between and leaves Riku on the other side, knowing he may never see him again. 

He finds himself standing on a rock at the end of the world surrounded by emptiness, between an unknown path and his home, wondering what the prince is supposed to do when the princess is safe and the knight is the one who needs saving.

  
  
  
  
Sora is fifteen, and he has been feeling Riku everywhere he goes.

In every world, in every encounter, Sora feels as if Riku is all at once several steps ahead of him and right behind him, with no moves that go unnoticed. From Santa Claus, who tells him to believe in Riku as if he knows something about him that Sora doesn’t, to every hint the King accidentally lets loose, Riku’s presence is felt like Sora has only just missed him. Riku is there, somehow, when Sora finds helpful clues all over Twilight Town, and he knows that the real Riku always has his back.

At the top of a mountain, Sora battles in the snow under the watchful eye of a black coat that his heart tells him is Riku— regardless of what his eyes tell him, and at the bottom of that same mountain he finds hope, in the form of a ruler who describes Riku’s particular brand of snark that Sora would recognize anywhere.

The sight of Mulan and Shang together brings tears to his eyes, and Sora feels an ache in his heart that only the absence of his friends can cause. 

But it doesn’t go away, even when he reaches Kairi, and Sora stands with a distance between them; she’s right in front of him, but she feels oceans away, like he’s looking at someone he used to know. 

But she’s Kairi, and she’s here, and Sora is happy about all of that.

“You’re different,” he tells her, though he struggles to identify why. “But I’m just glad you’re here.”

“You and Riku never came home, so I came looking for you,” she says, and even though there’s frustration in her voice, it’s still so gentle, and it makes Sora feel even more guilty for leaving her behind.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, but she’s not interested in that, crashing into him with full force in her hug, and Sora freezes.

Sora freezes, and his arms hover, eyes wide and shoulders tight, no idea where to put anything, and he thinks this must just be what crush hugs are like.

It’s real, and that means something to her, so Sora returns her hug in kind, unsure of what to do with the silence between them until he hears the sound of a corridor being summoned.

“Wait, Ansem” he calls, pressing hands to Kairi’s shoulders and pushing her back without thinking. “I never thought for a second that I’d ever see you again. Just thinking about all the things you did makes me really mad,” his hands even ball into fists just imagining it. “But you saved Kairi, right? I have to be grateful for that. Thanks.”

Sora thinks nothing of it when the man in the coat walks away; even when Kairi chases after him, Sora is thinking about the ache in his chest that hasn’t gone away, and his shoulders hang, as his mind drifts to—

“Riku, don’t go!”

Sora stands at attention. “What did you just say?”

“I’m no one,” the man says, but his voice feels warm, unlike the Ansem he’d fought. “Just a castaway from the darkness.”

“Sora come here, say something to him!” Kairi pleads, and she looks so solemn, her voice unrecognizable through how worried she is. “Here, you’ll understand,” she says, and Sora trusts her, even when she places his hand on top of Ansem’s, even when she tells him to close his eyes.

The second he does, Sora’s racing heart calms. He doesn’t feel Ansem, or any other creature of the darkness. He feels Riku, and a hand he’s held hundreds of times before.

“Riku…” Sora reaches his other hand for him in disbelief, and he feels his heart rush with a fullness he’d almost forgotten. It’s not in his control anymore, as his heart brings him to his knees, and forces the tears from his eyes, overwhelmed by the relief he feels and the intensity rushing through his heart.

“I looked everywhere for you,” he cries, and just like Riku’s name he isn’t sure how many times he says it, sobbing as he remembers all the times Riku was somehow there when he wasn’t. 

“C’mon, Sora, you’ve got to pull it together,” he hears, and it’s Riku’s voice, loud and clear. “I didn’t want you to find me.”

There’s so much he wants to say and so much he wants to ask him, but despite Riku’s teasing and his banter with Donald and Goofy, Sora shrugs off all questions but one.

“Why didn’t you let me know you were okay?” 

It would have changed so much. Sora doesn’t care what Riku looks like or how his voice sounds; Riku will always feel the same, and the ache in Sora’s heart has disappeared.

But even as they’re headed off to battle, Sora wonders why Kairi didn’t make him feel the same way.

  
  
  


  
  
Everything is dark, and they are all that’s left.

But Sora isn’t afraid.

Even in eternal darkness, he feels invincible at Riku’s side, like nothing bad could happen to them as long as they’re together. And it won’t — not with Kairi and the King and all the others safe at home. Together, he and Riku will protect everyone, no matter what it takes.

It almost seems nice; the waves, and the peace, and nothing but time with Riku next to him, and Sora wonders if he’d be okay the other way around, if Riku were the one at home instead, and there’s a bottle at their feet before he can find the answer.

The light is here, and Sora’s princess is waiting.

  
  
  
He soon takes the deepest nap of his life, and all he hears is Riku’s voice the whole time. It’s the safest he’s ever felt, until Riku wakes, and Sora flings himself into the lap of the knight whose protection makes him feel the warmth of the sun.

  
  
  
  


Sora is sixteen, and they might die tomorrow.

There’s no way of knowing, really, if any of them will make it out unharmed, and all Sora has left is the belief that as long as they all stick together, the darkness will never be able to win.

The short time he has with his friends before they all turn into soldiers again would be a blessing to cherish, were it not for the fact that Riku is alone again, and Sora can’t take his eyes off of him.

“He said he needed time to himself,” Kairi tells him, in a voice lacking the confidence that would assure him, and though Riku’s always been pensive, it doesn’t feel right for him to be separated from them like this. “We should let him be,” she adds, and Sora isn’t convinced.

So much of the pain that Riku has been through could have been avoided if Riku hadn’t felt so alone, and Sora knows that now; it doesn’t feel right to give Riku the opportunity to ever feel that again. He does look happier than before, sitting so peacefully on the beach thinking about who-knows-what and looking like the sun picked him to shine on directly. But it’s not enough to fully assuage Sora’s unease about leaving him out of any heart-to-hearts.

But that doesn’t seem to be his choice, and a paopu fruit flashes before his eyes so quickly all he can think to do is recoil in response, staring back. Kairi’s right there, holding it out to him expectantly, with another on standby, and all Sora can do is stare.

This is it, right? The moment everything is supposed to lead up to. The girls always said the fruit was such a romantic gesture, and Riku had him thinking the same, but when Kairi hands him one, all Sora can think is...is this it? Is this what everyone’s always talking about? If this is love, shouldn’t it feel stronger, or more obvious? Shouldn’t he be excited and happy, instead of worried and confused?

Maybe he really doesn’t get this kind of love after all, and he’s feeling exactly what he’s supposed to.

“Tomorrow’s fight will be the toughest we’ve ever faced,” She finally says, and Sora realizes he hasn’t said a thing. “This can be a good luck charm, so we won’t be separated again.”

It doesn’t sound like love when she says it like that — it sounds like she’s worried, maybe more than he is, and though the pressure makes him hesitant, he could never reject such a request. It’s always been his self-appointed duty, to protect her.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he sighs, able to say this much honestly even while the rest of him tingles with uncertainty. 

“Let me keep you safe,” She retorts, and Sora almost laughs, wondering if the fruit really has those powers in the first place. To his surprise, the fruit tastes like nothing at all, and after their exchange, he feels unsatisfied.

That makes it his turn to think, and even after Kairi has left with blushing cheeks, Sora remains there on the tree alone, repeating the moment in his head over and over, trying to figure out what he should have done differently, how he could’ve made sure he felt all those magical things he thought he would.

Out of the corner of his eye, Riku is still on the beach alone, and Sora unconsciously reaches for him, grabbing nothing but air and letting his hand fall against the tree with a thud. It shakes another of the fruits loose, and Sora reaches up to yank it the rest of the way, so at the very least it doesn’t fall into the water and go to waste.

The fruit is heavy in his hands, and as he watches Riku, he considers going to him for advice; Riku is more experienced, and he’d probably know what to do and what Sora’s mess of feelings means, but the more Sora watches him, the less he wants to even mention it. 

His hands grip the fruit more tightly, and without thinking he breaks it in half, staring at both pieces and imagining what difference the legend may have if two people share one fruit instead. Maybe Riku knows. Maybe Riku has the answers to all of his questions, and maybe if Kairi’s paopu was just a good luck charm, there would be nothing wrong with Sora extending one to Riku too. He wants to stay connected, unable to be separated, from Riku too.

Just for a second, Riku seems to notice him, their eyes meeting and Riku giving him a curious furrow of his eyebrows accompanied by a smile, and Sora’s heart pounds, causing him to drop both pieces of the fruit into the water. So much for waste.

He smiles back at Riku, but finds himself looking down, pressing a hand over his heart and wondering why the thought of sharing one with Riku gave him sparks that Kairi’s fruit didn’t.   
  
Everything makes sense, when he’s later flying through a tunnel of darkness, towards the warmth of a light that isn’t hers.   
  
  
  
  
  
Sora is newly seventeen, and he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks.

Nights are too quiet, too inviting, too open. Silence reminds him of darkness, of eternal sleep, and all the things he doesn’t ever wish to face again. So often when his eyes fall closed, heavy from the strain, he jerks awake, suddenly overcome by the feeling of falling asleep for what he believed to be the last time, and his body acts on instinct, refusing to let it happen.

When he does manage to push himself to the point of exhaustion where his body stops fighting it, his mind takes over, and more often than not, he’s plagued by nightmares. Some of them are entirely fictitious, figments of his imagination formed entirely by the fears he still holds, but far worse are the nightmares inspired by his real experiences. Losing his friends, losing himself, facing enemies he can’t win against. 

Tonight is no different. On this night, his subconscious has prepared for him a highlight reel, of all the times Riku has put himself in danger for Sora’s sake, or someone else’s, culminating in a dramatic, too-realistic replay of the moment in the Keyblade Graveyard where Riku knowingly willed himself to his own death, just to give Sora a chance.

Only in this dream, it doesn’t work, and Sora is left alone, staring helplessly as Riku disappears before his eyes, and Sora screams Riku’s name into the emptiness that surrounds him.

It takes a moment, for him to realize he’s sitting up in his bed, surrounded still by darkness, but parts of his bedroom are lit by the moon. His heart is racing despite his supposed sleep, and Sora sighs in frustration, wishing he could stop seeing some of his worst memories every time he closes his eyes.

He could call Kairi again. He knows she’d answer and be helpful regardless of the time, but he already said goodnight to her over the phone, and he’d hate to interrupt a peaceful sleep on her end for the same problems he experiences almost every night. 

Sora drops his feet over the side of the bed and onto the floor, where he accidentally steps on the heartbinder Yen Sid had given him, and one name comes to his mind: Riku.

If Riku is really his dream eater, maybe being closer to him is all he needs to get a good night’s sleep. He’s always been the one amongst them to stay up latest too, so maybe he’ll get lucky and he won’t end up waking him up.

It’s only an idea, but Sora’s out his bedroom window with no change in his attire but the sandals he slips on his feet, even leaving behind his Gummiphone. He does end up wishing he’d brought it to use as a flashlight, but their island has always had a bright enough view of the moon that it lights his way to Riku’s home, where Sora finds himself outside his bedroom window, looking up at it with no plan to get inside.

But there are pebbles on the ground, and before considering a better idea, Sora throws one in Riku’s bedroom window. “Riku?” he calls, but when he doesn’t get an immediate answer, he reaches for another pebble, tossing it into the window again without looking, only for it to hit Riku square in the forehead. “Oh, sorry! You’re still awake too?”   
  
It’s a rhetorical question; obviously he is, and Sora is thankful, looking around for anything he can use as a ladder until a familiar scratch on the wall grabs his attention; it’s from years ago, when Riku’s parents had to build a ladder up into his room because of how often Sora had tried to climb this wall as a child. 

The memory makes him grin. “Do you still have it?”

He does.

Already he’s feeling better, when Riku lets the ladder down and he climbs right up, taking advantage of the moment and somersaulting in the window and onto Riku’s bed, dropping his sandals on the floor.

“You never grow up, do you?” Riku shakes his head, and Sora finds it surprisingly easy to smile at him.

“Nope,” he says, confident. “Boring.” 

He’s so tired, Sora’s on auto-pilot, assuaging Riku’s worries and trying to smooth things over until he can get to sleep somehow, but Riku sees right through him and Sora is left in silence, with nothing but Riku’s concerned eyes and his own thoughts. But many of his thoughts are dark, and he’d rather rid himself of them. If Riku can help, it’s worth a try.

“I can’t sleep,” he offers, tentatively. “I keep having nightmares, and...I’m afraid I won’t wake up.”

He’s expecting a scolding, or an explanation, but Riku arrives at his usual protective stance before long. “I wouldn’t let that happen,” he says firmly.

“Yeah…” Sora knows that better than anyone now, that Riku would do anything it takes to keep him from disappearing, to keep him losing himself again. His hand finds Riku’s knee, and grips it tightly, already feeling the affects of Riku’s presence and feeling his eyes getting heavier. He almost falls asleep like this, still sitting up.

“Do you want to sleep here with me?” Comes Riku’s voice, waking him just barely, but it comes with a sense of relief, something his body expresses.

But in an instant Riku’s moving to get the cot, to sleep separately, and Sora lunges without a thought, as if his body acted without his mind. He doesn’t even realize he’s yelled until the ‘no’ hits his own ears, and he blushes, gripping Riku’s arm. “Please sleep with me?”

Riku doesn’t hesitate to comply, and Sora feels the closest to peaceful he has all night, as he nestles in next to Riku under his covers and falls asleep in an instant.

But soon he’s dreaming again, the same dream from earlier, only this time Sora fights back, crawling on the ground towards Riku, his hands in the dirt and tears streaming down his face. Riku turns around one last time, and he’s crying too — something Sora has never seen in reality, at least not to his memory — and he pushes himself as hard as he can, closer and closer towards Riku’s tear-filled face. But no matter how hard he tries, Riku never gets closer, and Riku’s tears fall swiftly as he fades away. 

Sora’s in the dark again, only this time he’s crying and screaming and trying his hardest to get to Riku, only to hear Riku’s voice and realize he’s back in the real world, tangled in Riku’s limbs from his own restless sleep. He looks up to see Riku’s face, and all at once he’s so afraid and so happy to see him, he can’t handle both at once, and he cries harder, holding Riku closer.

But Riku wants to know what’s wrong, and Sora can’t take keeping quiet anymore, forcing himself to sit up and let his legs hang off the side of the bed, feeling Riku’s eyes at his back. “I can’t do it again,” he whispers. “I can’t lose you again.”

“You don’t have to worry about losing me,” Riku slides off the bed and in front of him, causing Sora’s heart to jump when their eyes meet, but he doesn’t look away.

“That’s what I thought before,” Sora starts, voice hoarse from strain and face sticky from tears that have fallen. “But look how many times I almost did. The darkness took you from me so many times, I can’t stop seeing it when I close my eyes.”

“What about everyone else?”

Sora’s jaw tightens, and each memory replays in his mind in a flash, in his heart over and over, and he’ll never be able to see them the same way. “No one else left me on purpose,” he says, and his shoulders feel heavier.

“Saving you came before anything else,” Riku defends. “As long as you were okay, nothing else mattered to me.”

“I’m not okay without you,” Sora tries to interject through the tightness in his chest. “You thought so hard about keeping me alive, you didn’t think about whether I’d be happy.”

“You’re not happy?” Riku asks, but Sora can feel the weight of Riku’s heart sinking as he does, and that isn’t what he wanted from this.

“I am,” Sora climbs in his best friend’s lap and wraps arms around his neck, resting his head on Riku’s shoulder and embracing the way his stomach flutters when his nose brushes the back of his neck. “Please don’t change that by going away again.”

Riku says he won’t, and the warm arms that wrap around Sora’s torso make him want to believe it.

But he can’t help but ask, “How can I know you mean it?”

Riku answers him with silence first, and Sora appreciates it, knowing Riku’s taking the time to come up with words he’ll stick to, a reason he truly means it. Sora isn’t expecting anything in particular, but the words that come from Riku’s mouth weren’t even in the many possibilities he’d mixed in his head.

As if the words bounced off the walls and returned to him, they repeat in his ears over and over, his ears warming.  _ I love you _ . That is what he said, it has to be. There isn’t anything he could mistake it for. Sora pulls back, just enough to face Riku while still in his lap, hands gripping his shoulders with eyes that fixate the second they meet. “You mean--”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you--”

“Forever.”

“Then why didn’t you--”

“Fear,” Riku sighs, and Sora’s cheek flushes red where his breath touches, the rest of Riku’s words fading as Sora’s entire body feels lighter.

He can’t hold it in any longer, messily pressing their lips together and shoving away the tiny thought in his head that wonders if his tears make it taste awful. It sure doesn’t to him, and it’s only the shyness he feels from Riku’s hands on his waist that makes Sora pull back, holding back a smile when he meets Riku’s eyes again.

“So then,” Riku clears his throat. “You too?”

Sora wants more than anything to say it back. He knows he should even, but the flushing of Riku’s cheeks is too cute to ignore and he can’t resist driving his original point home, “Now you really can’t ever leave me behind again.”

He smiling now, but Riku is quick to break it with a kiss of his own initiation, and Sora allows him to continue until they fall asleep, knowing love will always be there to wake them up.

  
  
  


  
  
Sora is eighteen, and they’re having one of their frequent parties on the beach. 

They haven’t told anyone yet, something Sora had requested despite his excitement, wanting to keep something secret between them, something for just the two of them to experience without any outside forces anymore. But Sora has never been a master of subtlety, and he’s pretty certain a few of his friends have picked up on it already, as Sora finds it difficult to keep his affection for anyone hidden, and he’d be fighting that urge on hard mode with Riku.

The singing in his heart is constant, and even when on opposite sides of a room, of a field, of the beach, their eyes find each other like magnets, like energy conducted by their connection alone, and Sora has become more than familiar with the way a heart in love flutters.

He’s currently failing dramatically, as he and Aqua have teamed up for the mushroom hunt, but all Sora finds himself searching for is Riku on the other end of the beach, to see that Riku’s experiencing the same issue with Terra, and Sora waves a bit bashfully when their eyes lock onto one another. 

“It’s always so nostalgic being here!” Aqua remarks excitedly, as they cross under the bridge, exactly where they’d met for the first time all those years ago. “Sora?”

He hasn’t forgotten the mission, he’d swear it, and he forcefully breaks his gaze away from Riku’s to bend over and bury his hands in the sand. “Uh, I’m looking, I am!” 

“Sora!” she laughs, Sora wonders if Terra is having the same issue with Riku. “I give up,” she sighs, but there’s no frustration in it; if anything, she seems fond, just like Minnie when she finds out what Goofy and Donald have been dragging the King into.

Sora does finally pull himself away more adamantly, turning directly toward Aqua so there’s nothing in his direct line of vision to distract him. “Whoops,” he shrugs with a grin, and he flops onto the ground where Aqua has seated herself in the sand.

“Sora,” she says, quieter this time, and he almost misses it, stealing a glance over towards Riku again, where the latter smiles at him, and Sora tries his hardest to keep his own smile in check. “Do you like Riku?” she asks, observant.

“Of course I like him, he’s my best fr--” Sora starts, like a reflex, and as much as he’d believed Aqua when she’d told them about their first meeting, and the vague memory existed somewhere around his subconscious, he’d never fully reawakened it until this moment, where he finds himself saying the exact same words like they were written inside him. He looks up at Aqua, grinning like she expected this, and he mimics her sigh. “I love him,” he confesses with a shy pull at his lip. 

Aqua’s heart lightens so much that Sora can feel the energy shift, and she reaches towards him, pointing at his necklace, “You found your prince.”   
  
“My-- Huh?” Eyes wide, Sora brings a hand to his chest, grabbing his necklace. “I kinda always thought I…”

Getting the gist before he has a chance to finish his thought, if he was even able to, Aqua pulls her hands to her chest too, holding her wayfinder tightly in her palm. “Do you remember what I asked you last time we met here like this?”

“To...stay with him,” Sora repeats, like he’s reliving it for the first time.

“And keep him safe,” Aqua finishes, her voice warm and comforting, and Sora is glad he didn’t shy away from her like he had Terra. “Would you say you did that?”

“I never stopped trying,” Sora nods, knowing that even when he wasn’t able to stay by Riku’s side, he was always on his way; he never lost sight of the mission Aqua had set for him even if he hadn’t remembered it. 

“I knew you would,” she smiles, the palm of her hand rubbing the top of his head, and it feels familiar, while still brand new. “Should I have used different words? You always had the strength in you to protect him.”

“The strength to protect what matters, huh?” Sora half-chuckles. “Riku’s always talking about that. You think I already had it?”

Aqua nods. “Haven’t you caught on? It’s strength of heart, not body. You were born with that, and the way you helped Ven proves it.”

“Huh,” he huffs thoughtfully, eyes on Riku again without being caught this time, and he watches fondly while his heart beats stronger and stronger in his chest. “I guess sometimes princes need rescuing too,” he laughs, and a feeling of love washes over him as he considers all the years he spent picking apart fairy tales, only to miss the one he was already living.

**Author's Note:**

> i dedicate this to claudia, for reasons she knows! ♥ and huge thanks to kit who drew an art piece that inspired an important moment in here ♪


End file.
